2016 Bakersfield Mid-Air Collision
The Bakersfield Mid-Air Collision, also known worldwide as the Bakersfield Disaster, was an air disaster that occurred on the evening of Saturday, December 10, 2016. The sky was cold and cloudy over the suburban town of Bakersfield, California when EVA Air Flight 486, a Boeing 777-300ER, and American Airlines Flight 1857, an Airbus A321, collided over the city. All 339 passengers and crew aboard the EVA Air flight, the 171 passengers and crew onboard the Airbus, and 22 victims on the ground were killed. This makes it the second deadliest aviation disaster in history, surpassing the 1985 Japan Airlines crash. Flights EVA Air Flight 486 was bound for Los Angeles International Airport after a fourteen-hour flight from Taipei-Taoyuan International Airport. It had 322 passengers 17 crew members. American Airlines Flight 2857 had just departed from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and was heading for San Francisco International Airport. EVA 486 has a variety of passengers from different nationalities including Taiwan, United States, China, and India. There were also 18 passengers from Sri Lanka, 9 from South Korea, 2 from Australia, and one passenger from both the Netherlands and Bulgaria. Most of the passengers on AA2857 were American nationals, but there were 6 passengers from Mexico, 4 from Canada, and 2 from Barbados. Crash At around 8:02 PM PST, EVA 486 was headed in a southeastern direction for LAX as it had almost completed its journey. Most likely the passengers were waking up and filling out their customs paperwork. AA2587 was heading northwest. Both flights were due to pass each other in a parallel fashion at the same altitude of 38,000 feet. Captain Carter of AA 2587 was told by Air Traffic Control (ATC) to change their heading from northwest to directly north due to a third unidentified aircraft that showed up on radar without warning. This put EVA and American on an intersecting path. Investigators still do not know how the third plane appeared and disappeared, but it happened in such little time that ATC could not tell EVA to descend before both planes received warnings on their TCAS. Captain Liu of EVA 486 tried to turn to the right hoping that the American would pass in front of it before they intersected. At the same time, Captain Carter tried climbing. It was too late. The tail of the EVA Air plane sliced through the fuselage of the American A321 just behind its wings. The American jet was now in two burning pieces. The front half of the A321 lost one of its wings, entered a steep dive, and crashed in a neighborhood by Allen Road. It struck a driveway and destroyed the house, killing three people in the house and the driver of a Subaru in the driveway. The wing also fell on a nearby road where a Chevy truck was crushed by the engine, killing all three occupants. The tail section crashed onto Westside Parkway. No cars were present at the time. Dozens of Bakersfield residents reported seeing the explosion in the sky as well as the burning trails going many different directions. Drivers, pedestrians, and people near their windows saw it. Hundreds more were disturbed by the loudness of the mid-air collision and subsequent ground crashes. EVA 486 was still able to fly, but it was crippled since it lost most of its tail and aft pressure bulkhead. This caused the 777 to begin flying in a horrifying pattern. First it would enter a steep dive, then level off and climb back to its original altitude. Without hydraulics, the plane could only be flown with engine power. For over 30 minutes, the jumbo jet flew erratically until it made its way over the town of Tehachapi. Finally, the aircraft struck a hillside with several homes, killing everyone onboard as well as 15 people on the ground. Immediate Aftermath It was pandemonium in both cities. Firetrucks, ambulances, and police cars were going every which way as the emergency operator centers were overwhelmed by different calls. People were desperate to help their families, friends, and neighbors. Innocent people who were just preparing for Christmas were now haunted by the images posted on social media that depicted gory details. Bakersfield and Tehachapi, once normal towns not known by many people outside of the state, became infamously recognized by the entire globe in just a few hours. In the years to come, the disaster's name would be associated with the horrifying images taken that evening depicting the wreckage and human remains. Long-Term Aftermath While Bakersfield and Tehachapi soon recovered, the aviation industry did not. This was almost a direct repeat of the Uberlingen Disaster in 2002, only on a much larger scale. The NTSB and the FAA had to reconsider the way they handled rogue aircraft disturbing the nearly perfect flow of air traffic. Protocol was changed and new laws were executed. Although this only made flying safer, nobody knows where exactly this unidentified aircraft came from or if it'll ever show up on the screen of an unsuspecting controller ever again.